Discussion Question 3 **SPOILERS**

3. What was Clarissa's relationship with Sally Seton? What is the significance of Sally's reentry into Clarissa's life after so much time? What role does Sally play in Clarissa's past and in her present?

That's an interesting question. Of course they were best friends, but I almost had the impression that they were lovers, or that they had come close to being lovers. I got the feeling (and this is just me) that Sally was the reason Clarissa and Peter didn't get together. Maybe Sally and Peter's reentries on the day of the party signified that Clarissa may finally be at a place in her life where she can gently set the past down and walk away. Being around Clarissa's age, I can see that happening to me as I age.

>2 tloeffler: Iiinteresting...I always thought that Sally and Clarissa were on the verge of something, too. But I think Peter could *never* have been Mr. Clarissa. He's "The One That Got Away." Don't we all, at least those of us over 40, have one of those...the Perfect Mate, the Ideal Lover, the Great and True Love that just didn't pan out, that wasn't interested in a future, that...whatever, but is surrounded by a halo of beauty in our rear-view mirror?

I thought it was very interesting, based on your last sentence, that Virginia Woolf saw the story ending with Mrs. Dalloway's suicide when she was planning it. Things turned out differently, obviously. But "gently set(ting) the past down and walk(ing) away" is what she does, which is the rational person's version of suicide, eh?

Peter COULD have been Mr. Clarissa, but like most idealized losses, it probably would not have worked out as well as Richard did for her (although, interestingly enough, I didn't get the feeling she appreciated Richard's feelings for her). You're right, though, I think we all have one of those.

I didn't realize the Clarissa was intended to die originally. That would have put a different spin on all of it, wouldn't it? And good point about the "rational person's version"--I can see that.

One thing I didn't quite understand in Mrs Dalloway was the character of Sally Seton. In the past, Sally is seen as the wild thing, an alluring free thinker. My thought was that she and Clarissa were emotional lovers if not physical. But when Sally shows up at the party, she's almost dowdy, dull, and unimaginative. Is it to show how far off our fantasies can be?

>4 tloeffler: interestingly enough, I didn't get the feeling she appreciated Richard's feelings for her I don't know that she's even aware that Richard HAS feelings for her! It doesn't come out in anything she does or says. I feel sure this is another Woolfian comment on the reality of marriage as she knew it.

>5 snash: I had a different take on Sally's new characteristics...it seemed to me that Woolf, whose whole life was a running away from her innate lesbianism, was commenting on Sally's increasing depression and alienation from her true self leading to the presence of the drab and dull creature she is at Clarissa's party.

Ah, that's another take which surely makes as much sense as my guess. Would Clarissa, then also be living a life now alienated from her true self?

Don't you get that feeling about her (Clarissa) most of the way through the book? That she's going through the motions, but hasn't ever let go of the past? I see a lot of that in her.

>7 snash:, 8 Yes. I think that E.M. Forster, whose review of Mrs. Dalloway I read in The Mrs Dalloway Reader Prose, was right in calling Clarissa hard and superficial...she had to be, it's the armor she donned to protect herself from the fraud she's perpetrating as "Mrs. Dalloway."

Interesting discussions on this thread. My initial comment is that I read this story with no background as to what was going on in the author's mind or the author's intentions when then sat down to compose this story. Mainly because I am not a big fan of anything that suddenly takes on a different implied intent once I have an explanation from the author.

As for the relationship between Clarissa and Sally, I felt that Sally was the personification of the independent free spirit that Clarissa wished she could be, but knew in her heart she couldn't become. It was the given chemistry of 'opposite attract' which occurs even in a non-sexual relationship. I saw their bond as an emotional bond only.

Sally's re-entry into Clarissa's life was akin to the 20-year high school reunion..... where you discover that the most popular girl/boy in school has, over the course of 20 years, transformed into someone you never expected which is a sudden shock for you as you haven't seen them for 20 years.

As for the mention above by Richard about "The One That Got Away"... Yup, can relate to that, and it is interesting to me that Clarissa was having that same ponder about Peter.

>10 lkernagh: Lori, I think it's unnecessary to come to read a book with foreknowledge of the author's intent and process--and in fact, for most of us, could be a real buzz kill. I'm glad you're done reading the book, then entering the discussion. It's really a better way to experience any book, IMO.

I agree with tloeffler and Richard, the relation between Sally and Clarissa seems to have tended to be more than just a friendship, when they were young. Clarissa has been in love with Sally, but the time didn't allow it. And I don't know if Sally ever was.

During their lives they have grown apart: Clarissa next to Buckingham Palace, Sally out in the country. And they don't understand (and dislike) the way the other lives.

There's a certain distance between them when the meet again, which they both try to hide.

I actually thought that Sally ended up with a better life than Clarissa. Clarissa seems to attach importance to superficial things, whereas Sally does not. Although Peter was in love with Clarissa, he spent his time with Sally.
--BJ

>12 boekenwijs: Isn't distance between old friends on different paths inevitable? Woolf seems to think so, and she's gone to great lengths to make it obvious that she's aware of the lengths we humans will go to in order to prevent others from seeing our true feelings about them.

Richard, maybe I'm not old enough, but it doesn't have to be like that. I've some friends I didn't see for a coule of years, but we now have a very good time when we have dinner together.